Treading Water
by gibbsheroic27
Summary: Charlie's lungs burned.
A/N: So, this happened. *makes shifty eyes of confusion*

Parts of this are probably inspired by Miss Nettle's Wife's stories involving Charlie Davis and unfriendly bodies of water.

Also, if this story makes little sense, well, join the club ; )

Charlie's lungs burn, the sharp match of pain dancing across ribs igniting into a fiery inferno with every lack of desperately needed exhale. Something scrabbles helplessly at his ankles, the murky darkness surrounding everything muffling his orientation. Down becomes up as things start to distort, to slip…

 _Congratulations Sergeant Davis._

 _That's very good Charlie._

 _And if you won't help me Davis you can go to hell!_

 _Let me read you something Charlie!_

 _He's a bit of an odd one, but he's okay._

 _Charlie made them._

Charlie manages to tear his eyes open for a second, the random and apparently stray thought that he probably burned the potatoes by now leaving him gasping in chocked breaths, his tongue somehow surprised at the shear amount of mud and salt mingling with reeds in their bid to choke the last of his airway.

The thing around his ankle has gone ominously limp, and Charlie's head is too clogged with images of the Doc's mother's favourite place settings to remember if that's a good thing or not.

He's only called him Lucien once, ages ago, before Adelaide, before Mattie and Lawson, before everything went so right and then so wrong at once.

 _Damnit Charlie!_

 _Did you know?_

 _Your father would have been proud of you. He was his own man._

 _I refuse to see the world that way. I genuinely believe that people are worth saving._

It had been the Doc's birthday. Mattie sent a card last week, multi-coloured and bursting with happy well wishes. The Doc had smiled so hard everyone pretended not to notice the tears coursing into his beard.

Charlie had practiced his subtlety by sliding awkwardly into the Morgue on his lunch break, leaning oh so casually on a cold steel table, eating soggy Tuna fish and listing his favourite spice flavours in decending order.

Blake's laugh had been unusually loud in the spotless room, bouncing around the metal tables with a surprisingly soothing ring. "Nice try Charlie, but your interrogation technique needs a little work."

Charlie almost choked on his Tuna, blushing a rather alarming shade of tomato.

Blake's back is firmly turned to him, his shoulders still shaking with enviable subtlety as he addresses the old sink against the wall. "I've always been rather partial to lemon custard myself. My father couldn't abide the stuff."

Charlie's skin has settled to a tame lavender blush when Blake's infamous eyebrow cocks delicately towards him, the pointed "How do you stand on Lemon custard, Charlie?" as deadpanly serious as it is patently ridiculous.

Charlie actually chokes this time, so his response is muffled gently against the reassuring patting of the Doc's shirt clad arms, but he far from minds the excuse to hid his rather misty eyes. Mattie had loved Lemon custard.

"Can't say I've ever tried it Doc."

 _Charlie, don't move! It's poison, don't move._

 _He's got a gun! Charlie! It's stuck!_

 _Sorry Sir, I didn't hear anything._

 _Charlie, look out! Boss!_

 _How's Charlie? Ah yes, our Charlie._

Water swirls ominously around the edges of Charlie's eyeballs, salt parching his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He's pretty sure the fact his lungs are strangely painless isn't a good sign as his point.

His ankle comes free with a swirling kick, followed by a sudden weightlessness that ushers in a single gulp of delicious, untainted oxygen.

Hands flailing uselessly in the cold darkness, grasping for something that isn't there, up becoming down becoming up, he thinks for just a moment he may have heard something.

 _This is Constable Davis._

 _I felt sorry for the boy._

 _You know Charlie, you're welcome to the spare room anytime you like. Jean wouldn't mind._

 _That's probably Charlie._

 _You're dinner's in the oven Charlie._

 _Charlie made them._

 _Is Mrs. Beazley alright? How's Jean holding up?_

 _I'll see you at home later Doc._

 _Charlie lives with us._

Something slams into his shoulder, twisting painfully against the pull of the rather choppy reeds. Charlie's grasping fingers attempt to curl in slightly desperate claws around the reassuringly starched shirt sleeve plunging across his suddenly expanding field of vision.

Air explodes with blissful fullness across his parched mouth, desperate sounds coalescing into a panting rhythm as the last of the water releases it's strangle hold on his ears.

"It's alright Charlie, I've got you! Just hold on now." A hand pounds against his oddly dull lungs with painfully reassuring efficiency as rough wood scrapes against his shins, a second set of hands reaching for his limp legs.

One of the ankles feels funny, like it's not quite all there anymore. Charlie's eyes note the sudden blanch in the Doc's complexion with a detached numbness. It somehow doesn't seem important right now.

"Sorry I burnt your birthday cake Doc." Some part of Charlie's brain registers he shouldn't be able to articulate that well with the distinctly diminished lung capacity he's operating with at this point. Another part of his brain acknowledges that he should at least be coughing a little by this point.

The Doc's chuckle sounds oddly wet. Funny, he could have sworn the man hadn't gotten that wet in his typically heroic and typically Blake-esque water rescue via rowboat.

"Don't worry Charlie, you won't get out of trying lemon custard that easily." Charlie's laugh is wetter than Blake's chuckle was, if that were possible, but it's muffled nicely by the Doc's soggy vest.

Warm palms wrap around Charlie's shivering chest, hitching him higher up in the Doc's arms as the boat settles into a steady rock towards shore. Charlie feels his chuckle turn into the first weak attempt at a cough just as something warm and small and wet strikes his freezing cheekbone.

The slap of the oars grows steadily louder with every hack of Charlie's chest, the salty liquid positively streaming into his hair by this point.

He could swear it's the warmest he's ever felt.

 _Thank you Charlie._

 _Anytime Doc._


End file.
